Changing Your View

Today’s picture means a lot to me, for several reasons. Anyone who has been in my house has seen this board, but I’m certain very few have ever truly taken the time to look at it. This board is one of the ways I remind myself daily that I can always change my outlook, my the way I am looking at issues and events going on in my life.

I don’t think anyone who knew me in my younger years (or even a few years ago) would ever have believed that I would become a happier, less angry, even mellow person, much less a minister. Sometimes I still have a hard time believing it because I am a different person.

I grew up in a house where anger and tension was the norm. Talking before coffee was unusual, and not being a “morning person” was the rule. Some days now, I still sometimes have to fight the old urges to be constantly negative. One those days, I try and visit the board as many times as I can, absorbing it for as long as I need to.

Making changes in my life wasn’t easy. It took many steps to reach the point where I am now, where I don’t say “Don’t talk to me. I haven’t had my coffee yet.” It seems like a big jump, and in retrospect, it was. But it wasn’t a big jump all at one time. That’s what I didn’t realize until a few years ago. It is many tiny steps. Steps like posting positive notes, keeping positive messages around everywhere (dry erase markers work great on mirrors guys! leave yourself a message to wake up to in the morning). I had to learn to understand that just because I had been a product of a negative environment, did not mean that I had to stay a product of a negative environment.

On my board, I have a variety of quotes and affirmations from many sources: church, family, motivational speakers. They can come from anywhere. One of my favorites is the little yellow one down on the bottom right. A couple months ago, my husband came home with a little paper he had found on the car. On one side it said only “Smile at strangers…We’re in this together!” The other side has an email address , SmilesAreFreeYuma@gmail.com , and says that Smiles are Free is a project by a boy and his mom focused on spreading “happy”. How awesome is that! Congratulations, Mom, for teaching positivity to your son. And more than that, Thank You for being an example.

Both the board, and every note on it, are small examples of the little things that we can do to change our views. When we learn to change our views, we can change our lives and through changing our lives, we can change our world.